Facebook does right thing, listens to disgruntled feedback

With every Facebook redesign come the inevitable subset of users who fear …

Facebook's new homepage brings a streamlined look while shifting some functionality

Like Wayne and Garth, Facebook's users have typically feared change. With each major feature addition and redesign, a subset of users have cried out in horror and formed various groups in protest (for all that those are worth). Facebook has typically forged ahead without looking back, but the foot stomping over its latest changes was loud enough to make the massive social network have a slight change of heart.

To make a long story short, Facebook obfuscated a lot of activity from the news feed—the main homepage column that contains updates from friends—with its latest redesign earlier this month (which, for those keeping count, followed less than a year after the previous redesign). Before, users saw everything their friends shared, such as photos, new friendships, and activity from third-party sites via Facebook Connect. With the redesign, much of this activity has either been removed from the news feed or left up to a popularity algorithm for the Highlights section, the column on the right. But that section only contains so many items and does not update very often, creating the fundamental problem that the redesign's critics are kicking dust over.

Some users accuse Facebook of chasing the conversational simplicity of Twitter. The social messaging service recently touted year-over-year growth of 900 percent in active users versus Facebook's reported 149 percent growth. Others complain that Facebook has scrapped much of the incentive to use its service, since users can no longer see a lot of what their friends are up to, and all the potential of Facebook Connect has been thrown to the redesign wind.

In a post on the official Facebook blog, the company has acknowledged the uproar over the changes and elaborated on a number of forthcoming tweaks designed to bring balance back to the news feed. Most importantly, Facebook will be "giving you tools to control and reduce application content that your friends share into your stream." Meredith Chin, Facebook's Manager of Corporate Communications, could not confirm to Ars whether this meant the return of the granular and much-missed "Story Options" control panel.

In conjunction with more control over what you see in Facebook's news feed, the Highlights algorithm is also being improved to update more frequently and display more content throughout the day. Other forthcoming changes include easier ways to create Friends List filters (found in the new left column) and an option to turn on live updating so users no longer have to manually refresh the page. In a nutshell, "we just have to figure out the right balance between letting people share and consume in the right way," Chin explained.

The changes are set to appear in "the next several weeks," and we'll have to see whether their implementation is satisfactory to the frustrated masses. As Facebook becomes an increasingly dominant social player with over 174 million users around the globe, it picked probably the perfect time to listen to those users. With previous iterations, Facebook was still exploring the dynamics of social media interaction. This latest redesign silenced much of that potential.

I don't quite understand why the layout of Facebook isn't more configurable. The data seems to be separated from the layout enough that users couls probably be given more control about what types of things show up in the main feed and perhaps even what shows up where on the page.

I never complained about the new layout, but I do find myself visiting Facebook less since they changed it. That's probably the opposite of what they want.

I was one of the people who complained that Facebook is basically attempting to become like Twitter. The consolidated main feed offers little more than the stupid "look at me, look at me!" stream-of-consciousness that Twitter offers. I've made my peace with the obnoxiousness of having a Facebook, I don't want to have to reconcile myself with being even more obnoxious because I have Twitter.

I refuse to use social networking sites. I think they're cesspools of the worst society has to offer. No, I don't count Twitter as a social networking site, if only because you can't provide more than a few details about yourself.

Originally posted by Elledan:I refuse to use social networking sites. I think they're cesspools of the worst society has to offer. No, I don't count Twitter as a social networking site, if only because you can't provide more than a few details about yourself.

Kudos to FaceBook for realizing they gakked on this one. I tried really hard to like the new version, but the more I use it the less I like it. I hate to be one of those "hate the FaceBook" masses though; I generally LIKE their changes.

Interesting concept, but it failed. Yes, users wanted less overwhelming content -- but didn't want FB to be the one deciding what they wanted to look at. The changes they are suggesting sound like they are genuinely targetting the real "oops" in the design.

I was not fond of the old feed control panel since it didn't really work very well. Hopefully they will replace it with something more granular and flexible.

It baffles me that they rolled out this redesign without ever realizing that people might want to filter out specific apps, not specific people. That was the first thing that occurred to me when I used it. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I was pretty content with the new design, although I also really like Twitter. Count me in as another person who thought the "old" new design previous to this was getting far too cluttered, and the ads were almost too numerous. I like simplicity and minimalism in terms of how it looks, so I was really happy with how the new FB looked. I also really liked moving things over to the right side. Do that for all photos and videos and I would be a very happy camper.

It's free and you still get to show off your ass to that cute guy you really really really like, but aren't sure if he is cool or something. So, if you like, send him your friend request and he like, accepts you, and like tags that picture of you and him, you SOOO know he is into you!!

OMG!!!

Who cares what it looks like? You aren't paying a single penny to use it!

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the new design, it's the fact that it stripped away important, relied-upon functionality that made it so awful. The fact that they're willing to make it, you know, work like Facebook again is a good thing.

2b) If you get the quiz page/send a coffee page/whatever (in other words, you've already allowed the application access), then scroll to the bottom where it says "Page built by [SOME APPLICATION NAME]" and click that link. Go to Step 3.

3) On the right side of the page, you should see a "Block Application" link, right below "Become a Fan". Click that. You'll get a popup, and confirm.

4) Refresh your home page and the spamtastic crap from that application should be gone!

Don't they get it? If Facebook users want an application that did the same thing as Twitter...then they'll use Twitter. Why change your product so that it can be more like [different, very successful product]? All that will achieve is to make a lot of people think they're using a copycat version of a more successful product, which will make them think, 'Huh, I may as well use the real thing instead of this.'

I, too, dislike some of the new changes. One thing that seems to now be absent is the ability to "tag" your friends when you post hyperlinks to other web pages? (If it is still there, I must be missing it.) That was useful to me, because I tend to share items of news/political interest with a few of my friends on Facebook. Without the ability to tag their names though, they aren't necessarily notified that I posted a new link they should see. I have to hope it shows up in the "stream" of new things I've posted and they notice it's a link intended for them to read.

I know the latest Facebook changes are causing it not to show everyone my posted links -- because I've had to IM a number of people and individually resend them URLs they said they "never saw me post on Facebook" but wanted to see.

r3m0t: "InThane: there was a time in the new redesign where blocking an application would not remove its items from your news feed. I tried it myself."

Blacklists suck. (We know this. I opted out and I still want a whitelist so that I may keep it empty.) However blocking an app now means you never see it spam your newsfeed again. You will still see the app on friends' pages, but that's it.